et tu?

There’s a Michael Frayn short story we read a few years ago. It was set in a provincial newsroom and related how the reporters had reduced their news gathering to filing cabinets full of index cards. On the cards were all the classic stories and phrases they’d used over the years. Hot day: “man cooks egg on pavement” - that sort of thing. When a story was needed one of the cards would be taken out of a drawer (often at random) and the same ideas recycled. Sounds familiar? It certainly will if you read the Sunday Times story on et al. this weekend, The Day Art Died. In a rash attempt at humour (don’t do it guys), Sunday Times reporter Kim Knight went to the Take-the-piss-out-of–a-highly-respected-New Zealand-artist cabinet and pulled out the following cards.

1 Artist makes work of art that is a braying toilet

2 Money wasted on contemporary art again

3 Creative New Zealand wastes our money sending a portaloo that brays like a donkey to Venice. (er Kim… it was different work altogether).

4 Elitist artists try to make fools of an unwitting public with in-jokes

Next week, All Black in bar brawl.